On purpose. Your tabs, bookmarks and history are on your Mac and nowhere else. The only things that leave it are the pages you ask for.
Privacy, concretely
What
Where it is
Who can read it
Passwords
Not in Tern at all. They stay in Apple's Passwords app or your password manager.
Whoever you already trust with them.
History, bookmarks, open tabs, hidden elements
Small JSON files in ~/Library/Application Support/Tern/
You.
Cookies and site data
WebKit's own store for the app
The sites that set them, as in any browser.
Anything else
Nowhere. There is no server.
Nobody.
The only things that leave your Mac are the pages you ask for, their icons, and one small request a day to see whether there is a newer version. A private tab (⇧⌘N) has its own cookie jar and leaves nothing behind when it closes.
Questions
What is Tern?
Tern is a small, free web browser for macOS built on WebKit, the engine already in every Mac. It shows a row of tabs and the page, and nothing else.
Is Tern free?
Yes. Tern is free and open source. There is no account, no subscription and no paid tier.
Which Macs does Tern run on?
Any Mac running macOS 14 or later. Chrome extensions need macOS 15.4 or later.
Does Tern block ads?
Yes. Third-party trackers and ad networks are stopped at the network level before the page loads, on by default and off per site, per choice.
Does Tern run Chrome extensions?
Yes. Paste a Chrome Web Store link in Settings, or open the extension's page in Tern and press Add. They run on WebKit's own extension engine.
Does Tern collect any data?
No. There is no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reports and no sync. History, bookmarks and tabs are files on your Mac. Passwords stay in Apple's Passwords app or your password manager.
How big is Tern?
About 5 MB on disk. It uses WebKit, so there is no second browser engine to download or keep in memory.
What if I experience a bug?
Write to tern@90five.com with what happened and, if you can, the page it happened on. A person reads it.
Updated
From
90five
Subject
A browser with nothing in the way
Hi, this is Tern, the browser we built for ourselves and use all day. That's it in the window above. A row of tabs, across the top or down the left, and the page. No toolbar, no start page, no account to sign into. One field: type an address and you’re there, type a few words and you’ve searched.
It runs on WebKit, the engine already inside every Mac, so the whole app is about 5 MB and opens instantly. Ads and trackers are stopped before the page loads. Press ⇧⌘H and click a cookie banner, and it’s gone from that site for good. ⇧⌘R strips a page to the article, ⇧⌘P floats a video above everything, and Chrome extensions install straight from the Chrome Web Store.
Nothing leaves your Mac: no sync, no cloud, no telemetry. Passwords stay in Apple’s Passwords app or your own password manager.
The download is in the tab next to it. macOS 14 or later, free. Something wrong? Write to tern@90five.com.
